Wednesday, March 11, 2009

Origins and Eonnagata

Madly busy ever since I got back - almost entirely with the logistics of Origins. We now have a programme, and the core items of it are on the website: www.originsfestival.com. At the moment it's a temporary version, pending the beautiful new site designed by Sam, but at least the word is out! It's a huge undertaking - but today the burden was eased a bit by taking on a really exciting new Production Manager, called Jon Hare. I think he's going to be a god-send.

China already seems a long time ago. Penny and I started following up with the Chinese companies today: Penny's carefully building the next stages of the project.

On Friday, I went to Sadler's Wells to see the new Lepage piece, Eonnagata, made in collaboration with Sylvie Guillem and Russell Maliphant. I must admit, I was a bit scared when I heard Robert was making a piece which drew off an Asian tradition of cross-gender performance, and which involved dancers.... I was worried that I'd have nothing left to do! Luckily, the two shows could not be more different. Eonnagata is much more a dance piece than The Orientations Trilogy: in fact, the story is limited to a few bare facts about the life of the Chevalier d'Eon - little more than you get from the one-page programme note. The real joy of the show is purely visual, with an incredible lighting design by Michael Hulls. When I tell her about it, Nisha says that Robert seems less and less of a theatre-maker these days, more of an installation artist. I think she has a point.